Written at Town-end, Grasmere. When I was a child at
Cockermouth, no funeral took place without a basin filled with
sprigs of boxwood being placed upon a table covered with a white
cloth in front of the house. The huntings on foot, in which the
old man is supposed to join as here described, were of common,
almost habitual, occurrence in our vales when I was a boy; and the
people took much delight in them. They are now less frequent.